Meet the Seniors

Sure, they’re thrilled to graduate. But where are they going? Where have they been? Amherst interviewed more than two dozen members of the Class of ’08—men and women who’ve studied in Siberia, Greece, India; who’ve worked for record labels, hospitals, senators; who’ve joined the U.S. Navy and the Peace Corps. Here are 15 of their stories.

Defining experience Living in the Agape Community, a Catholic commune in Ware, Mass., the summer after sophomore year

Studied abroadin Greece, where he visited places mentioned in the New Testament

Lesson learned “To make myself vulnerable to people in order to really get to know them.”

World’s greatest problem“A lot of systems are bad for us and the world—war, suburbs, getting food from Florida. But we’re trapped in this sort of inertia.”

What’s next Starting an M.A. program in theology at the University of Notre Dame and working full-time at a church

Long range, Paz hopes to live in a Catholic farming commune or an urban Catholic worker house, where he’d depend on the generosity of others while at the same time providing for the destitute. He’s considered the priesthood as well but says he probably won’t pursue it because he disagrees with the church’s stance on ordination of women.

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Chaka Laguerre

HomeBrooklyn, N.Y.

Majors English and theater and dance

ActivitiesMentor, Girls Inc.; choreographer, Amherst Dance

Room decorationThe sash she received as the reigning Miss Jamaica United States

Guilty pleasure Watching cartoons

Acted inFor Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, her senior project

Interned at Atlantic Records

Lesson learned “I’ve never had a lot of close friends. I used to worry about what people thought of me; I had a tough time with that in high school. But I’ve learned not to care and to be happy with myself—flaws and all.”

Goal in life“To make my parents smile every day.”

What’s next Applying to law school and continuing her training in theater and dance

Ambition“To be extremely successful in either law, film, theater or dance. Also to start a philanthropic venture for arts in education. And I really want to adopt a lot of children.”

Laguerre commuted an hour and a half each way to LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. She’s danced with a troupe affiliated with the Alvin Ailey Dance Co. and performed for Michael Jackson and members of the United Nations. But the audience member she’s most sought to please has been her mother. “My mom wants me to be a lawyer or doctor, because she used to be a dancer,” Laguerre says. But after the For Colored Girls performance, “she looked at me and said, ‘You were great. I support you.’ And I cried.”

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Dave Fortunato

Home Princeton Junction, N.J., where he grew up, and Seattle, where his parents now live

Majors Computer science and economics

Activities Men’s rugby, NOTE (a student computing group)

Favorite courses The TV Novel and The City, which involved watching The Wire; Introduction to Computer Systems

Find him on C Level of Frost—“It’s the quietest place”—or in the computer science lab

World’s greatest problem “We’re not living in a sustainable manner. The things we use, the way we treat the environment, the way we treat each other—we’re taking more than we give.”

Goal in life To make things that people use

What’s next Working in software development at Ning.com, a Silicon Valley start-up

Defining moment “I hope it hasn’t happened yet.”

“I like working on tough problems in very stressful environments,” Fortunato says. He worked with Larry Hunter, the Stone Professor of Natural Sciences (Physics), on a Website that parses information from the weather station on top of Merrill Science Center. He’s also helped many others at Amherst to build or improve their Websites.

Regret “I don’t think I have any regrets. Even deciding late to be pre-med is not a regret because I love history so much.”

World’s greatest problem “There isn’t enough help for the Third World.” (Her mother was born and raised in Colombia: “My family comes from a place where terrorism is fact.”)

Medical school was a childhood am­bition, but Fazzano pushed it aside when she took advanced physics in high school. “I ended high school thinking that science isn’t my forte,” she says. But in Milan, far from family and friends, she was forced to be self-sufficient and she became more confident. “I realized, I’m a perfectly smart girl. I can do it.”

Daniel Curtis

Find himin a practice room, at Amherst Coffee, or in his room listening to music or studying a score

Traveled to Vienna, Austria, where he took part in a chamber music festival

Regret“That I didn’t learn Russian.”

Defining moment Watching pianist and conductor Leon Fleisher perform at Amherst. “I got to play for him in a master class.”

World’s greatest problem“Specifically, global warming must be the greatest problem. More metaphysically speaking, it might be the many preoccupations of our world that prevent us from seeking truth and meaning in our lives.”

Curtis always wanted to be a conductor. “But in the kind of way,” he says, “that people say, ‘I want to be a movie star.’” Now the childhood fantasy is a concrete goal. At Amherst, in addition to guest-conducting the orchestra, he’s taken part in a chamber music workshop. Off-campus, he’s conducted excerpts from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

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Angela Choe

Home Bloomington, Ind.; Wonju and Bundang, Korea

Major Neuroscience

Activities Concert Choir, playing piano

Favorite courses History of Western Medicine, Neurological Biology of Disease

Prized possession The metronome she’s had since fifth grade

Find her in the lab or the music building

Regret “I’m not good at keeping in touch with people. It’s something I’m working on—to actively give to and show interest in my friends.”

World’s greatest problem It’s impossible to pick just one. “Is it selfishness? Is it lack of understanding? Is it that we fail to step back and see the big picture?”

Ambition To be a physician

Choe has spent a lot of her life moving—between Korea, where most of her relatives live, and Indiana, where her father was a visiting professor. That’s one reason she didn’t study abroad—she wanted to live in one place for four years. She’s been active in a program at Amherst to teach Korean to anyone who wants to learn.

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Ajayi Lawrence

Home East Palo Alto, Calif.

Major Black studies

Activities Multifaith Council, Black Student Union, Men’s Project

Prized possession His gohozona, used for Buddhist meditation

In his room NASA poster of Saturn; meditation beads

Guilty pleasure The waffles in Val

Find him in the admission office, where he works

RegretNot taking voice lessons all four years

HobbyStudying the early black college graduates of the United States

Defining moment“My dad’s stroke changed my life fundamentally. It made me realize how short life might be.”

Goal in life “To be unapologetically happy.”

AmbitionTo be a black studies professor. “I’m still hoping to be an astronaut as well. We’ll see.”

Next year, Lawrence, who spent four summers at NASA, will work for the Foundation for a College Education, a Cali­fornia organization that puts students on a college track. Lawrence himself is a product of that program. He’ll also continue to help care for his father, who suffers from dementia, and his mother, who has cardiopulmonary disease.

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Katie Roza

Home Hagerstown, Md.

Major English

ActivitiesAmherst Student, Choral Society, tutoring

Prized possession “My hearing aid.”

Lesson learned “I used to hide my hearing loss. I’ve learned to wholeheartedly embrace the challenges and the comical misunderstandings that come with it.”

Guilty pleasure “Occasionally, I lip-read people from across the room without their knowledge.”

Studied abroad in Siena, Italy, where she studied Italian and Italian Sign Language

Defining experiences Learning American Sign Language and joining the Amherst Women’s Chorus. “To participate in both the deaf and hearing worlds—to sign and sing—is a dream come true.”

Accepted to Mt. Sinai Medical School; matriculates in 2009

Roza grew up in rural western Maryland with her parents, twin sister and set of twin brothers. In her sophomore year at Amherst, she applied to Mt. Sinai’s early-acceptance program for humanities majors. She'll spend next year working with the deaf community in Siena on a Fulbright Scholarship.

Lesson learned “The people who don’t immediately present themselves as being social—people whom others have passed up—can make some of the best friends.”

Goal in life To balance work and family, to develop a strong social network and to do meaningful work

Ambition To get a Ph.D. in computer science and to fuse her interests in computing and performance

Home-schooled until college, Jessop spent her early years studying whatever she liked. “I went through my archeology phase, my astronomy phase, my meteorology phase,” she says. Then, after spending time with public school kids, she decided to study the basics: math, English, social studies, science, French. In high school, she designed her own classical education. At Amherst, she designed costumes for theater performances.

For the next two years, Chen will try her hand at teaching. After that, she intends to settle in Jamaica: “The greatest problem my country faces is brain drain.” She says that at Amherst, she’s learned to disagree with others politely and fearlessly.

Evan Bruno

Prized possession “It was my car. The cold weather killed it. In general, I try not to get too attached to things.”

Room decoration A Clint Eastwood poster

Studied abroad in London, his first time overnight in a large city

World’s greatest problem A reluctance to assess and think critically

Goal in life“To have done something worthwhile. That’s what drives me. So I’m not sure if I want it to come sooner or later.”

Joined The U.S. Navy; leaves July 5 for Officer Candidates’ School

When Bruno signed on to four years in the U.S. Navy, he knew it was a defining moment. “Everything else I’ve done,” he says, “I could have gotten out of.” Bruno, whose father retired from the Navy, will work in military intelligence.

Zac Mason

Interned for Senator Hillary Clinton in 2006 (on a Latham Scholarship from Amherst)

Traveled to Sri Lanka to volunteer after the 2004 tsunami (on a Gerety Fellowship for Action from Amherst)

Prized possession “My guitar.”

Room decoration A map of the world

World’s greatest problem “Hands-down, global warming.”

Ambition To join the Foreign Service

Accepted to the Peace Corps; leaves for Mali in July

In 2004 and 2006, Mason went door-to-door registering Amherst students to vote in their home states. In Mali, he’ll work in water sanitation, cleaning the water supply, digging wells and building water pumps. He speaks French and Arabic and will learn Bambara.

Ambition “I don’t know. Not law. Not medicine. Not academia. That still leaves a lot. If I could run my own business—that would be cool.”

Considering Business school

Goal in life “To be in a position—professionally, socially, personally—that allows me a degree of freedom.”

This year, Epner (whose father is Maury ’78) started broadcasting basketball games for WAMH, the student radio station. In India, he hitchhiked from rural town to town (wearing the boots he’s pictured with), “simultaneously feeling utterly dependent and independent.”

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Juliet Tan

Home Singapore

Major Anthropology

Activities Coxswain, varsity crew; co-captain, bowling team

Room decoration Postcards from around the world

Studied abroad in Buryatia, Siberia, where she lived with a reindeer-herding family

Ambition To be a medical anthropol­ogist or to work in Arctic studies. “Or maybe to go to Alaska and do organic farming or research there.”

World’s greatest problem Measuring progress through material comfort

Goal in life “To affect the way people see things, especially culturally.”

In Siberia, Tan lived in a remote village in the Sayani Mountains, where she witnessed reindeer births and learned about the contemporary concerns of reindeer herders, including rural health care, the role of ecotourism and how to maintain traditional herding activity in a modern country.

Born in the Dominican Republic, Báez was 3 when he immigrated to Boston, where his parents had come in search of a better life. He grew up speaking English and Spanish, and he’s studied Latin, Chinese, Italian, Arabic and Portuguese. While at Amherst, he became an American citizen. He also co-founded Intercambio YA!, which sends volunteers to the Dominican Republic and raises scholarship money for university students there. Before he starts the Watson, Báez will spend the summer in Europe on a Humanity in Action Fellowship.

Traveled to Wurzburg, Germany, the summer after sophomore year, to work in an organic chemistry lab

Regret “I wish I could go back to freshman year and study the way I’ve learned to study. I think my grades would have been better. But it was an important learning opportunity for me, so it’s not really a regret.”

Goal in life “I want to have an intimate influence on people. That’s why I’ve shied away from science research. You’re not really connected to the people you’re helping.”